Even though summer reading is one of the most familiar terms among book lovers, you might be surprised to learn that most people actually read during the colder months, between November and February. After a busy day, we often prefer to collapse in front of the TV or scroll endlessly on our phones—but reading is far better for our brain. Even just a few minutes of reading significantly reduces our stress levels, which is more than almost any other relaxing activity, while regular reading reduces the risk of developing depression and overall mental decline. So now you know what to do the next time a rainy weekend rolls around.

With this blog post, we continue the Viva's reading blog series with Ana Kompara, @mamainljubljana, which started this summer. Let a great book in a cozy Viva's bag be your comforting companion this winter. What follows is Ana’s written piece…

It’s eight o’clock. The sky is grey. There’s no sun, no shadows. I’m typing, clicking, writing, sketching. The next seven hours are almost exactly the same—only the background music and the contents of my mug change, since I still underestimate how much tea I can drink in a single day. And so it goes, more or less every day until spring.
It’s no wonder that Danish author Solvej Balle chose a November day (today’s date, in fact) as the endlessly repeating day in her novel series On the Calculation of Volume. When autumn fades in all its magical shades and the leaves have fallen, an endless stretch of greyness can settle in, and it’s easy to feel like time itself has stopped.



“I haven’t found a way out of the eighteenth of November, but I have found little paths and tracks through the day, small passages and tunnels that I walk through regularly. I cannot escape the day, but I can enter it. I enter a predictable world, a world that becomes more detailed each time.”



But in On the Calculation of Volume, time for the main character doesn’t really stop—it derails. Tara finds herself each day trapped in a day she has already lived. Everyone else in the world repeats the same actions; everything resets, except her. She is the only one who can choose how to live the day over again, giving her just enough freedom within her entrapment to cling to hope: the hope of moving forward into November 19. Will she succeed?

The first volume of this internationally acclaimed series drew me in with its unique atmosphere, Tara’s precise observations, and the perfect touch of philosophical depth. Balle masterfully combines the tension of a repeating day with gentle, poetic descriptions of everyday moments, pulling readers into Tara’s loneliness, confusion, and her gradual exploration of the rules of a world only she can perceive (which things disappear overnight, and which remain?).

The bag you see on the photos is our latest design: VERA bag in Dark Caramel

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something different—fresh, intimate, comforting, yet slightly dystopian and utterly addictive. Despite its unusual premise, it reads smoothly and overall remains fairly easy to understand and definitely not boring at all! It will make you reflect on time itself: how we experience it, and what gives our lives a sense of continuity and meaning.



If this book captivates you as much as it did me, you’ll be glad to know that of the planned seven-volume series, five volumes have already been published in the original Danish. They’ve received numerous awards, and the first volume was even shortlisted for the prestigious International Booker Prize. In English, the first three volumes are currently available.